"This was my first novel [The Dissemblers ]. I've never seriously written short stories, and actually find short stories much more intimidating as an art form than novels."

“I'm trying to make a primitive painting. I'm trying to summon the archaic. I want to enter into a primitive situation. This is my protest against the sensory deprivation that we experience, which is due to this tendency towards globalization, towards homogenization, towards the generic - a technological standard rather than an aesthetic standard. I'm mining history, trying to regenerate a pictorial situation that is more humanistic. It's not about commodification, it's not about fitting into some sort of corporate structure. It's opposed to that direction.”

“You know, I once leased a Mercedes because I got a good deal on it because of my first name.”

Source : "Girl's Power Wows Mercedes Ruehl". Interview with Matt Webb Mitovich, www.tvguide.com. June 19, 2006.

“How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.”

“Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine?”

“It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.”

“Unfortunately, simplistic framing of problems leads to simplistic answers.”

“This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is an act of love for this unseen person, who, in the very gift of love by which we surrender ourselves to his reality also makes his presence known to us.”

“Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards.”